Many Eyes Now Has Better Mapping Visualization

Many Eyes now has more detailed mapping functionality with the help of ESRI data. It was really only a matter of time before this happened. It’s come to the point where I almost instantly think ESRI when I think maps–that and The Times maps department (who frequently uses ESRI data :). Anyways, this is pretty nice looking stuff. They’ve got bubbles, color coding, and multiple maps in matrix form (to compare).

I didn’t get a chance to look at the maps in depth, but one thing that I noticed is that the region bubbles are only labeled if they’re at least a certain size. If they’re smaller than that threshold, then it’s just the bubble. I’m not sure what the threshold is, but I feel that it could be a bit lower so that more labeling can happen.

There’s also (of course) zoom-in, zoom-out, and panning– features we have come to expect from online mapping applications. Zoom and pan gets a little sluggish when there are multiple maps, but the feature still feels pretty useful.